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Connecting people to places

The UK Government took a global lead in developing an online
service to allow the public to compare their door-to-door transport
options. UWE Bristol’s expertise in understanding travellers was
central to the design and subsequent use for planning millions of
journeys.

A vision from the Prime Minister

When what is now the Government’s Department for Transport (DfT)
was instructed by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair to create a
new resource to support travellers, UWE Bristol’s
Professor Glenn Lyons was among those they turned to for
advice. Blair’s vision was for a service akin to NHS Direct that
would, in the dawning digital age, make people aware of the travel
options available to them, inform their choices and make it easier
for them to plan and undertake their journeys.

The challenge for the Government was assembling the
capability to turn this vision into reality – not something it
could have achieved with its own civil service staff alone.
So, in 2002, it brought in key external experts to form an ‘expert
client team’ – and Lyons became its only academic member.

Pioneering research at UWE Bristol

Lyons was appointed in 2002 as UWE Bristol’s first transport
professor, and founded UWE Bristol’s Centre for Transport and
Society. With colleagues there, he continued to pioneer
research into the emerging role of the web in providing travel
information. This led to new insights into how best to bring
together and present information on different forms of transport,
such as buses and trains, in ways that would help people’s travel
plans and influence their travel behaviour.

For example, his research found that, contrary to the received
wisdom, the availability of travel information did not drive use of
public transport. Instead, public transport itself would need to be
marketed, and then people would look for information about how to
use it.

How would Star Trek’s Mr Spock differ in his travel planning
from Homer Simpson? This distinction between ‘homo economicus’ and
‘homo psychologicus’ turned out to be a simple but powerful way of
picturing people’s complex behaviour in making travel choices. It
was conceived by Lyons and proved influential in the
DfT’s thinking.

During his involvement with the DfT, Lyons
devised and presided over a programme of research projects to
support the delivery of the new information service.

Shaping a new service for the public

Research at UWE Bristol was significant
in the development and subsequent use of Transport Direct. UWE
Bristol findings on how best to maximise the usability of
information led to major changes in its design to take greater
account of the needs of real people, notably those with
disabilities such as dyslexia.

UWE Bristol input changed the service’s priorities. The initial
approach was focused on encouraging people away from private cars
and towards public transport. Lyons helped to shift the objective
instead to one of empowering people to make informed choices,
regardless of whether that matched any preconceived outcome.

"Without Glenn Lyons’ input in the early development of
Transport Direct, it would have been driven solely by policy rather
than by the needs of ‘real people’" .

Chief Executive of Transport Direct

UWE Bristol’s finding that promotion of public transport itself
drives demand for information about it shifted the emphasis away
from marketing the service directly to the public. Instead, it
moved towards encouraging third-party organisations to use it with
their own branding. Even so, there is evidence that its neutral
presentation of travel information influenced more of the
travelling public towards public transport than away.

Insights from UWE Bristol research helped guide the service
through its complex journey from conception to reality. In
full operation it covered around 100 billion journey
combinations. During its lifetime Transport Direct handled over 160
million travel information requests.

Blazing a trail

The service was ahead of its time. Having given significant
impetus to national information provision it has now stepped aside
to let other players in the market to pick up responsibility.

The effectiveness of Transport Direct did not
go unnoticed in the rest of the world. It has influenced the
Dutch national online journey planner, and a US telephone and web
resource for transport in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the
London 2012 Olympics, Transport Direct was selected to provide the
bespoke online portal that guided ticket holders to and from the
venues of the Olympic events. This ‘Spectator Journey Planner’ had
2.75 million unique users.

The influence of UWE Bristol research has therefore grown
from its major benefits to the UK travelling public to helping
people around the world.